|
Taliban kill, capture dozens of Afghan police
Taliban fighters killed at least a dozen Afghan police and abducted up to 40 in two separate attacks in southern Afghanistan, while US-led forces launched an offensive in a nearby province, officials said today.In the southern province of Zabul, a senior police official, Mohammad Rasoul, was killed and four other people, including two senior provincial officials, were wounded after the Taliban hit their car with a rocket yesterday. ''They were part of a reinforcement sent to help a group of highway police who had come under Taliban attack on a road of Zabul,'' said Yousuf Stanizai, the Interior Ministry spokesman. An official in Zabul, who declined to be identified, said more than 10 policemen were killed in the Taliban assault. The raid in Zabul came hours after the Taliban attacked a police base in Chora district of neighbouring Uruzgan province and abducted up to 40 policemen, an official in Kabul said on condition of anonymity. A Reuters reporter received a phone call from an unknown person who described himself as Mullah Ahmad, a Taliban commander, and said the militants had taken the police hostage and the Taliban's leadership would decide their fate. He said militants had killed 12 police in the attack before kidnapping the others. Separately, coalition and Afghan troops today scoured villages for Taliban insurgents in several areas of Ghazni province, said Sher Alam Ibrahimi, the region's governor. The operation was launched following a series of Taliban attacks in the province recently and amid reports the militants had regrouped there, Ibrahimi said. Coalition forces captured six suspected Taliban fighters, but there were no reports of fighting, he added. A coalition spokesman could not be contacted for comment. Posted by: Dan Darling 2006-06-01 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=154520 |